Please ask your friend if he would like to recount those stories using his real name. The problem we face is that as long as they come from an unnamed source Wagner can use that to avoid responding. If your interested tell me and I'll enable your e-mail account here.

I understand your concerns. I would not want your school tainted by my "background." Therefore, I will cancel our course together in December.

Be A Hard Target,

Jim Wagner

I don't mind giving people my background, which I expanded slightly on my own website, but I will not answer direct questions from a liar who libels my name on the World Wide Web. If you cannot see through the tactics of my competitors then it will be impossible to ever have trust between us.

7/28/2008 9:24am,

DerAuslander

He should have gone into politics. His response was a fallacious misdirect.

7/28/2008 9:25am,

Lebell

Quote:

Originally Posted by zipit777

MR. Wagners Response to me:

Tom:

I understand your concerns. I would not want your school tainted by my "background." Therefore, I will cancel our course together in December.

Be A Hard Target,

Jim Wagner

I don't mind giving people my background, which I expanded slightly on my own website, but I will not answer direct questions from a liar who libels my name on the World Wide Web. If you cannot see through the tactics of my competitors then it will be impossible to ever have trust between us.

Obviously dodging.
Would he be legit he would perhaps say the same things about the competitors and the libel on the net, but provided you with simple answers to the simple questions to prove the people 'lying' about him are wrong.
Instead this is the lame excuse he comes up with and turns the whole story around, other people are lying and he doesnt have to answer to liars.

Zip, be glad you missed out on that one, last kind of person you would want to have using your center right?

7/28/2008 9:31am,

zipit777

To be perfectly honest, I had no idea, I never real heard this side of the story and personally I dont like his stuff, but he was a big name in the magazines and stuff, I thought someone would be interested, But I thank you guys for bringing it to my attention....

Thanks all again, I hope I helped some way....

7/28/2008 9:34am,

DerAuslander

Dude, you did! Getting a response from him was a huge deal & I think it's very telling of him that he would cancel a seminar rather than answer a few simple question.

That fact is the most damning, and should be published everywhere.

7/28/2008 9:41am,

Lebell

Quote:

Originally Posted by zipit777

To be perfectly honest, I had no idea, I never real heard this side of the story and personally I dont like his stuff, but he was a big name in the magazines and stuff, I thought someone would be interested, But I thank you guys for bringing it to my attention....

Thanks all again, I hope I helped some way....

Well the one thing that i learned from this is that it proves once again there are a lot of MA-magazines that aren't critical enough and put all kinds of unchecked information about people into their articles as if they are true.
Maybe some of those magazines should work on their journalist skills and not just take the information they get for granted.
Basic rules of journalism are: check your information and to persue an objective article you should always hear out both sides of a story.

I'd say you helped getting a clearer picture of this mr. Wagner and you also did yourself a favour by emailing this man, now you know what you missed out on in a positive way.

The writer of the dutch article i translated for this thread was notified by me, i gave him the direct link to this thread but no reaction at all so far.
I did some more digging and it seems that the writer of the dutch jim wagner article is also the same person who actually books him for his organisation.

The guy blowing Wagners horn in a ma-magazine is also the guy who PROBABLY makes money (besides Wagner) of off the people who've read that article and sign up for a course with his organisation.

that's a bit dodgy when i think of it.

7/28/2008 10:13am,

Dsimon3387

Very telling developments imo.

Yes Lebell you hit the proverbial nail on the head... "fact checking" really should separate fiction from hyperbole and in the martial arts world it has not. Your Dutch compatriot "the beast" John Blume makes this point diplomatically and intelligently in his article on Mas Oyama and Robert Smith penned a couple of books that were obviously fiction (the worlds greatest fighters series) to try to wake people up.... to no availe.

"Zip it".... Errant's description (th political ploy) is perfect regarding Jim's response to your missive. I believe in psychological terms it would be called sour graping...."Humph! I don't want to teach at your school anyway!" The point is that the perpetrator is making a case for why they are the victim... never mind the original question of whether they can answer a few questions on their resume.

So let me ask a rhetorical question to Sam, who was kind enough to start this great thread, and to all the people participating? Who is the perpetrator in this scam? We have "the salesman" who tells us that when he picks his nose he is making sure landmines don't blow up civilians.... who when he goes out with the boy scouts tells people he does recon missions......etc. Then we have the enablers, the magazine editors that are more than willing to take these tales and like a bunch of drunken stupid minstrels write of these deeds and adventures without (as Lebell has demontrated) nary checking any details.

Then we have the real experts in the martial arts community that know the differnce between a sow's ear and silk but lets people continue to say what they want without stepping up. The result will be eventually when people are injured following the advice of charlatans, that the state will step in and regulate martial arts commerce. New Jersey already tried to do this once, for the tax revenues no doubt.

7/28/2008 1:35pm,

It is Fake

Quote:

Originally Posted by zipit777

To be perfectly honest, I had no idea, I never real heard this side of the story and personally I dont like his stuff, but he was a big name in the magazines and stuff, I thought someone would be interested, But I thank you guys for bringing it to my attention....

Thanks all again, I hope I helped some way....

Are you kidding? This is how MABS is supposed to work. Please save the email, Sam may want the originals if the "libel" gets bigger..